Coil tapped single

[Spence]

My experience with coil tapped single coils is one of great disappointment. However, I was asked to make a tapped Tele bridge pickup yesterday. Against my better judgement I did make one using 43 AWG for the middle primary coil and 44 AWG for the outer secondary coil. The results were really quite good. I just don't get why it is that this idea isn't very popular unless it's just because they're not humcancelling.

[corduroyew]

I think part of it is that people don't understand what the whole coil tap thing is. I've made several single coil pickups with coil taps and had nothing but good feedback but when I tell people that perhaps they should get a pickup with a coil tap they say "I didn't think you could do that on a single coil"

[kevinT]

they say "I didn't think you could do that on a single coil"

I thought the same thing.....can you describe how to make a tapped single coil...this is very interesting btw.

[mick]

Lots of people confuse coil tap with coil split ,

Mick

[Steve A.]

My experience with coil tapped single coils is one of great disappointment. However, I was asked to make a tapped Tele bridge pickup yesterday. Against my better judgement I did make one using 43 AWG for the middle primary coil and 44 AWG for the outer secondary coil. The results were really quite good. I just don't get why it is that this idea isn't very popular unless it's just because they're not humcancelling.

One of my favorite Tele bridge pickups was a SD ('56) Tele pickup that I "overwound" with the 43GA(?) wire from my broken SD Broadcaster back in 1982- I had unwrapped it onto an empty toilet paper roll, which I then used to "boost" a few of my stock pickups. With the Tele bridge pickup I added 2 taps on top of the stock wiring- I believe at 7.5k and 9k dc resistance. I could get the stock sound or either of the two overwound taps.

I think that part of the bad rap that tapped coil pickups get is that you often start with a decent sounding pickup and then offer weaking sounding taps with fewer turns. I think that if start out with a decent sounding pickup and then add turns for the "taps", you get much better results.

If you want to clean up the sound of a pickup you can always cut back on the volume a bit, which has an effect similar to using a tap with fewer turns. However if your optional taps use extra turns, then its like adding some overdrive to your sound without having to use pedals or adjust your amp.

As for it being not hum-cancelling, I believe that in 10-15 years there will be universally accepted solutions for hum (either something like the Suhr dummy coil or the ISP Decimator noise reduction pedal). I can eliminate hum on recorded tracks on my computer without affecting the guitar sound very much; I envision a pedal which actually is small computer that will take a "noiseprint" of the noise you want to eliminate and offer you dials to control a few of the parameters you can adjust on the computer plug-ins. There could be some DIP switches inside to set parameters like FFT sample size (lower numbers to reduce time-based artifacts, higher number to reduce frequency-based artifacts).

Bottom line is this: don't worry about the hum in your pickups- I think that we will be able to solve it externally.

Steve Ahola (I don't wind pickups- I unwind them! LOL)

http://www.blueguitar.org/

http://www.myspace.com/steveahola

[David Schwab]

I just don't get why it is that this idea isn't very popular unless it's just because they're not humcancelling.

It was popular back in the 70's. That's where Schecter made its mark.

[kevinT]

Is it safe to say that it is a coil within a coil? Is it 2 separate coils wired separately? or is the entire coil connected and you just insert a hookup wire somewhere in the coil and only use a specific section (DCR?) of the coil for the tap?

Per Spences description....using 2 gauges of wire... it sounds like to me they are two separate coils on one bobbin.

Can someone describe how a tapped SC would be wired (i.e. hookup wires to the tapped coils)?

Forgive my ignorance...the single coil tapped thing is new to me.

[petemoore]

Here's what I get, I think.
Start with 43 wire, wrap a coil and tap that [low'er' output pickup], then added 42 wire continuing on the same bobbin, taps for this one,
which when seriesed with the 43coil makes for more total winds connected around the coil [when switched in] = higher resistance = more output.
Switches are then used to choose 43 wire coil, 43 + the 42 coils, and even 43 + 42 + extra winds of 42 on top of that, again switches decide how many of the tapped coils are seriesed.

[Spence]

Rough sketch

The wiring is simple enough unless you're trying to figure it out when you're knackered like I was.



This is how I did it but it could be simplified. ie without having to use the bridge wire.

I used 43 AWG for the inner coil to 8 K Ohms. Then I directly wrapped another 5 K of 44 AWG right over it. There was enough room left to be able to do the vintage look string wrap.

[corduroyew]

Is it safe to say that it is a coil within a coil? Is it 2 separate coils wired separately? or is the entire coil connected and you just insert a hookup wire somewhere in the coil and only use a specific section (DCR?) of the coil for the tap?

Per Spences description....using 2 gauges of wire... it sounds like to me they are two separate coils on one bobbin.

Can someone describe how a tapped SC would be wired (i.e. hookup wires to the tapped coils)?

Forgive my ignorance...the single coil tapped thing is new to me.

On the tapped coils that I've made I used 43awg wire for the whole thing because I had to to make the pickup as hot as these people wanted them but 2 different wire gauges would work best if you can make it fit. I add 1 extra eyelet to the bobbin then wind the pickup to 8K and wrap the wire through the extra eyelet a couple times before addling the last few winds. The end of the 1st section and the start of the second share an eyelet. I don't even break the wire, I just kinda fold it and loop it through a couple time. The pickups then have a 3 conductor cable. The way I wire this is to have the start of the coil connect to hot, tap to a switch and end to ground. The tap switch is open in one setting and grounds when switched on. Doing it this way means you have to wind the pickups backwards and you have to make sure the wire doesn’t ground on your magnets, but it’s a really simple way to do it, and it doesn’t even take much more time. The 1st time I ever tried it was because I broke the wire while winding and I thought a tap would be easier than rewinding.

[kevinT]

Thanks Spence & Corduroyew.

I'm going to try to do one soon.

[Zhangliqun]

Probably one out of four single coils I make are tapped, so they're pretty popular with me. I've even made some tapped P90's.

For those who still don't understand the concept, it's really about as simple as it gets. On a Strat or Tele type pickup, you need 3 eyelets instead of 2 -- one for ground obviously, and one each for the tap hot lead and the main hot lead. Anyway, you just wind the coil up to the spec for the tap, bring a lead out via the extra eyelet, then continue winding until you are at spec for the main lead.

For good sound on both, as someone said earlier, when calculating the specs for the tap and main, it's best to add turns to an existing good wind recipe, not "remove" them from a good recipe. In other words, in practical terms this means don't tap a vintage wind; make a vintage wind for your tap and then add turns to it. Because nobody wants a tap that's significantly weaker than vintage, they almost always want to be able to choose between vintage and some extra punch.

I've made them with 42 for the tap and 43 for the added turns, and I've also made them all-43. And obviously you can use 44 too. Depends on what you're going for and -- of course -- how much space you have on your bobbin.